The So-Called ‘Gospel’ of Judas: Unmasking an Ancient Heresy

Welcome to Holy Week, American style. Just as millions of Christians are preparing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the media is once again out to debunk historical Christianity.

Just last weekend I was in an airport bookstore and saw the new book counter filled with numerous editions of The Da Vinci Code. Then I picked up the New York Times, and there I was greeted with the headline on the front page that read, “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal.”

You probably have seen the hype, including a one-hour National Geographic TV spectacular: After seventeen hundred years, the story goes, the long-lost text of the so-called “Gospel of Judas” has re-surfaced. It claims that Jesus secretly told Judas to betray Him; so Judas is really a good disciple.

Well, it’s not a new discovery. This “new gospel” and the heresy it espouses—Gnosticism—were rejected as fiction by Christian leaders and the Church as early as 180 A.D.

Gnosticism was an attempt to add to Christianity an essentially Eastern worldview dressed up with Christian language. It was presented to the Roman world as the true Gospel—complete with endless mysteries that only those with secret knowledge could unravel. Many unsuspecting people were enthralled with Gnostic writings, particularly their sometimes gory and salacious initiation ceremonies. Christian pastors and theologians repeatedly rejected all forms of Gnosticism, until, by the middle of the third century, it had all but disappeared.

But now it is back with a vengeance, with supposed discoveries and works like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. It provides the means for Christianity’s detractors to debunk the historical Jesus, and it certainly sells books. Seven million copies of The Da Vinci Code is testimony to that. Gnosticism has particular appeal today because of the postmodern age, which has rejected historical truth. So you can find God any way you wish, through your own group. This, of course, is the belief that is at the root of the spreading New Age movement.

The danger is that we have a biblically illiterate population. People today don’t know—maybe don’t care—whether there is a difference between the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of John. They are unfamiliar with the work of the ancient canonical councils of the Church (which rejected the Gnostic “gospels” time and again) or even of the basic creeds or confessions of the Christian Church. Sadly, people are as gullible today as ever.

Now it is tempting to get angry at National Geographic and the liberal press for unleashing this fraudulent “gospel” at the beginning of the holiest week of the year. But don’t. Instead, let’s use the media attention to debunk the debunkers, to point out to friends that this regurgitated Gnosticism—the Da Vinci Code and the “gospel” of Judas included—is nothing more than historically unsupportable fantasy.

Then we can point them to the knowledge that is accessible to all people that has been accessible to Christians for two thousand years and proven historically accurate. It’s called the Bible.

But whatever you do, get informed first. Come to our website (see further reading below) or call us here at “BreakPoint” (1-877-322-5527) and find some of the resources that we are offering. And get busy because millions can be suckered in—unless you and I set the record straight.

I have been a Christian all my life. But the more I read about the early and middle Christian eras the more I find that the bible as we know it has been rewritten how many times and how much has been lost in these rewritings??????

How much has been rewritten or lost? None.

You should find a better church if they have taught you so little about the history of the Bible and how thoroughly we know its contents throughout its history.

There simply is no document of antiquity that remotely compares with the authenticity and accuracy of scriptural preservation. There isn't any competition. This is true of the Old Testament as well as many archeologists finally discovered.

Despite the shortcomings of some modern translations that rely on the Alexandrian texts which tend toward awkward and inferior readings and omit a few passages, there really is no controversy about the basic text of the Bible and the events described. We have it as it was written and as it was known by the ancient churches. What we don't have are the gnostic texts which were rejected explicitly from the Christian canon in the same way that the writings of the Essenes (portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls) were rejected from the Hebrew canon. And among those gnostic texts, many of which originated in heresy-infested Egypt, was this gospel of Judas.

I wonder, who exactly gave these councils the authority to determine what was to be included or excluded from the biblical canon?

Short, smart-ass answer: The Holy Spirit.

It's not like there was an aboriginal "Biblical Canon" which was then edited or generally messed around with by folks. There were documents. Many of them were scrolls (SAL? Sequential access literature?). They couldn't be bound together in a codex. Then Codices (RAL - Random Access Literature!) came into use and the idea of binding books together unsurprisingly arose.

So then you start saying, "Hey, this book seems good, but that one there seems like it's a crock. I sure don't want to bind that nonsense with this other good stuff." And at the same time you have synagogues and Christian gatherings, some of which had probably been reading Paul's letters aloud when they gathered for worship. And they're saying, "Okay. Paul is good, if a tad grouchy and sometimes downright weird. But this Simon Magus guy? Giddouddaheah!"

Then it's naturally going to happen that people start worrying about what books ought to be bound together and what books shouldn't -- and generally, what books are authoritative and what aren't. It all kind of arises in response to a problem. And it takes a few hundred years to level off. It's not like there was an instruction manual on how to set up a world religion. There was a group, consisting largely of folks who at least once put as much distance as they could between themselves and Jesus and one of whom repeatedly denied knowing him. And then, well then something happened. And shortly they are telling the people with weapons, "Okay, YOU do what you have to do, and WE'll do what WE have to do." But they couldn't Google "Church Organization" or buy "Cultic Structures For Dummies". (As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Christianity survived its being entrusted to these dolts and poltroons is a great argument for its truth -- and for the hope it offers the dolt and poltroon who is writing this post.

And the problem hasn't gone away. You should hear the nonsense people who call themselves Christians want to read or to have sung at their weddings!

Again, much assumption being made...

For instance, you write:

Uhh ... I said the Gospels, the 'Gospel according to John', -- Not the 'The Apocalypse of John' (Revelation).
and
The 'seven kings' are the Roman emperors. Nero Claudius Drusus or Nero was the fifth emperor; and according to text, he has already fallen.

among other quotes from your post.

Actually, Nero was the sixth emperor. Revelation 17:10 says, "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space." The five "kings" were not ruling at the same time, for the text stated "five are fallen," meaning that five of those kings had come and gone. Then "one is," meaning the "king" who was ruling at the time Revelation was written. Here, in this verse, we have one of the clearest proofs for Nero being the beast. If we simply examine the list of Roman Emperors, we will be able to determine who the sixth king was. Flavius Josephus clearly points out that Julius Caesar was the first emperor of Rome, followed by Augustus; Tiberius; Caius (Caligula); Claudius; and the sixth emperor was…Nero (Antiquities, books 18 and 19), who assumed imperial power upon the death of the fifth emperor, Claudius, in October, A.D. 54. The matter is confirmed just a little later in the writings of Roman historians: Suetonius (Lives of the Twelve Caesars and Dio Cassius, Roman History 5). Nero reigned from 54AD to June of 68AD. John informs us that the seventh king was "not yet come." That would be Galba, who assumed power upon Nero's death in June, A.D. 68. But he was only to continue a "short space." As a matter of historical fact, his reign lasted but six months until January 15, A.D. 69. So anyway, that my rendering of the text, history, and theology.

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